Shopping
Pathum Wan is best known for its shopping centers. Siam Center is the oldest one in the area. Opened in 1973, it is now flanked by Siam Discovery Center and Siam Paragon (opened December 2005).
One of the most crowded and popular to both local people and tourists is MBK Center (also known as Mah Boon Krong). It is packed with shops offering fashion items, mobile phones and souvenirs. A covered, air-conditioned pedestrian bridge over Phaya Thai Road connects to a congested sister shopping center, the Bonanza Mall, which mostly sells inexpensive clothing and fashion accessories.
Siam Square, unlike others, is a shopping area consists of a block of buildings and lots of small roads full of shops, attracting mostly teenagers. There are three cinemas in Siam Square, built in the 1970s and run by the Apex chain: the Scala and Siam theaters offer a single, big screen; the Lido is a small multi-plex with three screens. Besides shops, many exam preparation schools are found in Siam Square. So the area is full of students during evening and weekends.
The Ratchaprasong intersection is flanked by CentralWorld (formerly World Trade Center and then Central World Plaza), BigC Ratchadamri, Narayana Phan, Gaysorn and Central Chit Lom shopping malls.
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Famous quotes containing the word shopping:
“Children’s liberation is the next item on our civil rights shopping list.”
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (b. 1939)
“The most important fact about our shopping malls, as distinct from the ordinary shopping centers where we go for our groceries, is that we do not need most of what they sell, not even for our pleasure or entertainment, not really even for a sensation of luxury. Little in them is essential to our survival, our work, or our play, and the same is true of the boutiques that multiply on our streets.”
—Henry Fairlie (1924–1990)
“The new shopping malls make possible the synthesis of all consumer activities, not least of which are shopping, flirting with objects, idle wandering, and all the permutations of these.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)